


A Knife in the Woods

by lovetincture



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Female Hannibal Lecter, Genderbending, Genderswap, Will Finds Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: "Don't be boring, Will. You catch a notorious serial killer, and your first thought is how my evasion sits poorly with your ego." Hannibal wrinkled her nose in an uncharacteristically unrefined gesture. "How very male of you."Hannibal Lecter is a woman and always has been. Maybe that's why it was so hard for Will to see it. Much to his horror, learning that she's the Chesapeake Ripper doesn't change much.





	A Knife in the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> I got really curious about how Hannibal being a woman would change the dynamic between her and Will, and how it wouldn't. This fic is the result of all that curiosity.

The knowledge of what Hannibal truly was struck Will like a nuclear bomb—inescapable and destructive, but incomplete in its desolation. It didn’t level his regard for Hannibal to the ground, as much as it should have. There were survivors in the wreckage. Feelings for Hannibal that stumbled around the ruins, maggot-filled and blind, begging for an end.

He told himself that’s why he accepted her invitation for dinner, even knowing that she knew. He’d tell himself otherwise later, but the likelihood of his survival didn’t factor into the equation at all.

Dinner smelled incredible. The savory scent of herbs and roasting meat buffeted him as soon as Hannibal opened the door.

“Will,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. “Welcome. Come in.”

He passed her the bottle of wine he’d brought. It was more expensive than anything he’d have bought for himself, and he knew Hannibal knew that, but she neither psychoanalyzed his disdain for nice things nor commented on the obvious way he still sought her regard.

“Thank you,” she said instead. “I’ve already decanted another bottle of wine, but we shall save this for later.”

Will followed Hannibal into the kitchen where she set the bottle of wine aside. She poured him a glass of wine and went back to slicing plums. Their juice pooled sticky and pale on the cutting board as she pitted and peeled them.

“I’d planned something else for dessert, but I saw these at the market and couldn’t resist. Plum coulis with ice cream, I think.”

Will nodded, although that meant nothing to him. He understood ‘plum’ and ‘ice cream.’

“Do you need help?” He asked automatically.

The offer brought a small smile to Hannibal’s face. “No, I’m just about done here, and dinner should be ready in a few minutes. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Will sipped his wine. It was very good, tart and earthy without being overpowering. He leaned on the counter and watched Hannibal work, the precise way she separated skin from flesh. He imagined her long fingers stained red with blood; the picture was so vivid he could smell the copper tang in the air.

He blinked, and they were only plums again, fragrant and sweet.

If Hannibal noticed where he’d gone, she said nothing. She washed her hands in the sink and dried them before filling two plates with a hearty stew topped with crusted bread and herbs.

“Shall we?” she asked, carrying both plates to the dining room.

Will picked up her glass of wine and trailed behind.

* * *

Dinner was uneventful, which was to say it was lovely.

The food was delicious, and the company was better. It set Will’s teeth on edge how utterly _normal_ it all was, how comfortable. Hannibal was scintillating and charming as she always was, and Will wondered how much of it was an act. How much of this was a show meant to misdirect others, and how much was because Hannibal genuinely enjoyed it? It seemed to Will that the line was blurred.

He could _see_ her now, see something dark and full of malice hiding behind her eyes, hear the knife’s edge lurking at the borders of her high, clear laugh.

He could imagine himself doing this every night for the rest of his life with shocking ease, and it made him angry.

“So do you always seduce your food before you eat it, or am I just special?” His words dripped acid.

Hannibal hid her disapproval behind her wine glass.

“Don’t be rude, Will.”

He stabbed a piece of meat on his fork and shoved it in his mouth. He very pointedly did not ask where it came from.

* * *

After dinner they adjourned to Hannibal’s sitting room, and Will was glad for the freedom. Sitting facing Hannibal through the entirety of a meal was too much. There was too much to see and be seen. Both made him equally uncomfortable.

Hannibal lit a fire in the hearth and settled into one of the plush chairs to enjoy it. She said nothing as Will paced, seemingly content to let him tire himself out body and soul, as the gears in his head turned.

“You’re ruthless and reckless when it comes to other people’s hearts.” Will said at last, accusing. He hadn’t planned on saying it, but now that those words were out, he found he didn’t want to take them back.

Hannibal tilted her head, a sly, keen look in her eye. “You have no evidence at all of how I treat others’ hearts, save your own. Tell me, Will, are you upset with how I’ve treated your heart?”

 _“No,”_ he said, too harshly.

Hannibal ignored him. She’d cut him to the quick, a shark scenting blood in the water, and they both knew it.

“Ruthlessness can be of great benefit. There is virtue in going after what you want with single-minded intent.”

“Even when it hurts others?”

“Especially then. I’ll agree to half your assessment of me. But reckless, no. Never that. Never with you.”

Will saw it now, the killer beneath the woman, and now that he saw it, he couldn’t unsee. He couldn’t believe he’d ever missed it; it was written into every interaction they’d ever had. He gave a harsh bark of laughter at the idea he’d thought Hannibal was just a therapist—unorthodox but _safe._

Hannibal cocked her head, a question to his outburst. Will shook his head, but the words bubbled up regardless.

“Why couldn’t you have been safe?” He sat down so hard it knocked the wind from him in a huff. His voice sounded plaintive even to his own ears. “You were supposed to be different.”

“Oh, my dear boy.” Her words dripped a curious compassion, and Will had to turn away. Had to close his eyes to avoid _seeing._

Hannibal slid into his lap and threaded her fingers through his hair. She tightened her grip, tugging until the point of pain and then past it, drawing a gasp from Will and an answering jolt of heat in his groin. He was suddenly very aware of just how close they were pressed together like this.

Her hands in his hair held him fast, so he couldn’t do otherwise but look at her, but he was stubborn. He looked at the thin, cruel curve of her lips rather than meet her eyes.

“Be honest with yourself,” Hannibal whispered in his ear. “If I were safe, I would have remained as uninteresting as you thought I was when we first met. You’re not interested in safe, Will.”

“I want to be.”

Hannibal pulled back so she could properly look at him. Her eyes roamed his face with calculated concentration, searching. She must have found what she was looking for because she nodded finally, a small jerk of her chin that would have gone unnoticed had he not been paying attention.

He was paying attention.

He was paying attention in a way that suggested he had never before paid attention to anything in his life, until this moment. She was _right,_ was the terrible truth of it. He had never found Hannibal more interesting than he did in this moment, knowing everything she was. He wanted to reach his arms up and twine them around her, grind her down onto his lap and capture her lips with his own.

He wanted to know how they tasted.

“I believe that,” Hannibal said, releasing him.

She dismounted, rising fluidly from his lap. The gesture could have been clumsy, but Hannibal inhabited it with the same grace she brought to bear on everything she did. She poured herself another glass of wine from the bottle lingering on the side table.

“Is it worth it?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Working so hard to be something contrary to your nature. I look at you, and I think it looks exhausting.”

Will swallowed around a throat that was suddenly too dry. The room felt too warm, where it had been comfortable only minutes ago. He didn’t answer, but Hannibal wasn’t really expecting him to.

She kept her back to Will in what could only be read as a deliberate display of trust, tipping her head back to take a drink from her newly refilled glass.

Will stayed put, right where she’d left him. He felt pressed into the chair by an invisible force. In this moment, he was pretty sure he couldn’t move if he tried. He should go. He should call Jack, take his dogs, drive and keep driving until he’d put several state lines between them. He should do literally anything but sit here sparring with Hannibal.

But she wanted him to stay, so he stayed.

Hannibal turned back toward him with a wicked grin, holding the uncorked wine bottle around the neck. She tilted it toward him, an offering.

“Please,” he said. His voice came rough and a little strained, to his embarrassment. Evidence of what they both already knew.

He didn’t come here to turn her in. Not really.

Hannibal didn’t comment on the state of him, just tipped the bottle forward when he held out his glass. Will watched it fill with fragrant wine that looked plum-black in the low light. She set the bottle back on the table, keeping her gaze trained on him as she did.

Clearly she didn’t intend to give him time to compose himself.

Instead of settling back on his lap, Hannibal took her seat in the second plush armchair. It was angled toward him, but offset enough that he could see her face in profile. He thought, not for the first time, how beautiful she was, how strange.

Hers was a cold, cutting beauty made of fine, sharp features. Will wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved that she had retreated from his personal space, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it before Hannibal spoke again.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“Your eyes,” he said without hesitation. The wine made him bold. “They remind me of the ocean.”

“Cliche, Will,” she chided.

“No,” he said, because she didn’t understand. “None of the things people usually mean. I don’t mean that your eyes are blue, or green, or beautiful.” He peered into them, and Hannibal let him look. “They’re cold. Full of hidden depths.” Will’s lips quirked up despite himself. “Concealing a frightening amount of dangerous things.”

“Some would say that’s not very flattering.” Despite the words, Hannibal didn’t sound displeased. She sounded… _interested._

“I’m not trying to flatter you.”

Hannibal looked at him, considering. She set her wine glass down on the table beside her chair with a definitive _click._ “Come here,” she said.

Will went.

He stood before her, and she waited, looking. Waiting for what he would do. It was barely more than a moment’s decision to sink to his knees in front of her—hardly much of a decision at all. Hannibal hummed low in her throat, an approving sound as she sank a hand into his hair for the second time that night.

She gave a little pull, and Will allowed himself to be led, until his cheek was resting against her bare knee, on the scrap of skin exposed beneath the drape of her dress. He pressed his face to the bone there and let his eyes slip shut. He sighed, contented.

“That’s better,” she murmured.

Will said nothing. It really was. The words came easier like this, without sight, without thought. He could smell Hannibal’s perfume here, something dark and spiced, and he idly wondered if she’d planned this, if she’d known. If she’d dabbed it on the pulse point behind her knees this morning for just this reason, just for him.

"How did you do it?"

She eyed him over the rim of her glass. "Are you asking about my morals or my methods?"

Will turned his face further into her dress. He was really having this conversation with a killer. And not just any killer, the _Chesapeake Ripper,_ while kneeling at her feet.

"The second," he said. "I just want to know how I could be so…"

"Wrong?" Hannibal supplied.

Will grimaced at the word choice but nodded. It wasn't particularly flattering to his ego, but neither was it an incorrect assessment.

"Clever application of leverage and generous use of intravenous paralytics.”

“We never found paralytic drugs in the bodies.”

Hannibal hummed. “You wouldn’t. I restrained them and allowed the drugs to run their course. Taints the meat, you see.”

She spoke casually, so they could have been talking of anything from the weather to the selection of fish at the market. He was appalled that he didn’t see it sooner.

"Don't be boring, Will. You catch a notorious serial killer, and your first thought is how my evasion sits poorly with your ego." Hannibal wrinkled her nose in an uncharacteristically unrefined gesture. "How very male of you."

Will sat up at that, defensive.

"It's not often I get a profile so wrong."

"You didn't though, did you?" Hannibal reached up to stroke a cool hand down the side of his cheek.

The simple touch felt electric. Will leaned into it, and Hannibal allowed it. She stroked her thumb over his face, and Will let his eyes slip shut at the feel of her fingertip dragging across his stubble.

Hannibal leaned in, her lips so close to his own that he could bring them together by tipping just the barest bit forward. So close he could feel her breath when she spoke. "Your profile was entirely right, except for the erroneous assumption that the Ripper must be a man. If it's a consolation, it was a good assumption. The odds were in your favor."

She pulled back, and Will felt like he could breathe again. He didn't realize he was holding his breath.

"You counted on it, didn't you?"

"Yes."

She could have stayed undetected, free to prey upon her victims at will for years, possibly indefinitely if Will hadn't gotten involved. If Hannibal hadn't tipped her hand to Will again and again, hoping he'd catch up.

She had been waiting for him. The knowledge dawned on him like something he'd always known but hadn’t admitted, and he everything he knew about himself and Hannibal—apart and together—rearranged itself in its wake.

She’d never wanted an adversary. Or if she had, it had been incidental.

Hannibal wanted a _partner._

Will came back to himself to find that Hannibal had moved, taking her wine to the fire. She stood before it, gazing into the flames, allowing Will to work it out for himself. Only the rigid line of her back betrayed her tension.

Will allowed himself a moment to look. It was easy to admire Hannibal like this. Safe, without those Marianas Trench eyes staring back at him, calling to an answering darkness in himself.

"Do you intend to turn me in to Jack?" Hannibal asked.

Will let the shape of that possible future spool out before him. He let himself wonder what she would do if he left. If she was hiding a knife in the sleek drape of her dress, if she planned to let him leave the house alive if he refused her.

"No," Will said at last.

He crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Hannibal from behind. She made a small, pleased noise that Will decided he wanted to hear again and again, and she turned her head to nuzzle into his shoulder.

Will wondered what Hannibal would do if he betrayed her. If she would make him into something more or less beautiful than the others in recompense.

He decided it was a good thing he didn't intend to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> You can check out my [original writing here](https://hopezane.com) if you're interested.
> 
> [Twitter](http://twitter.com/lovetincture) | [Tumblr](http://lovetincture.tumblr.com) | [Dreamwidth](http://lovetincture.dreamwidth.org)


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